Conference Call

Conference call August 2, 2012 On the call: Bego, Nazneen, Lois (partial notes, I had to leave half-way through) Discussion began about distribution of SONO filters in the areas of Bangladesh that still need them. Filter disposal is a problem? Perhaps due to arsenic but as soon as the contaminated water is removed from the ground there is that problem. Should someone drink the water; arsenic will be excreted and recontaminate the ground. The filters will contaminate in one specific place. Does SONO filter produce enough water per day for all the household uses? Maybe not. Bollywood actor hosted program on water on MagicTV. Suggested rainwater capture. Why is this not already a well-used solution in Bangladesh? It is being used in household and community systems in some places. Would mold or bacteria become a problem? There must be groups that have studies on this. At the Bangldesh Chemical Conference (2010?) there was discussion of the water hyacinth use to adsorb arsenic. Is our focus on the prize-winning focus OK? If our focus were to shift, perhaps that would simply be distracting from the goal of getting arsenic free water to prople who need it. Even if the SONO filters do best as a short term solution prior to getting a community system, how does the marketing get done? Would a distributed marketing system work in Bangladesh? How could we get this to mesh with Dr. Munir?

Un-Damn it!

Here is some good news for salmon...

Here is the live link:

http://www.video-monitoring.com/construction/olympic/js.htm

Chemists Without Borders in Bangladesh

Chemists Without Borders representatives were invited to Bangladesh University by the Board of Trustees to offer ideas for consideration as the University inaugurates a program of environmental science degrees and the Center for Environmental Research and Development. Ms. Rachel Pokrandt, Co-Director of K-12 Curriculum and Training, Beyond Benign (a green chemistry education enterprise) and I (Professor Lois Ongley, Secretary, Chemists Without Borders and Professor at Unity College in Maine) arrived in Dhaka on March 3.

Dhaka is a city that is at the forefront of some environmental inititatives: most vehicles operate on compressed natural gas rather than gasoline, plastic bags seem to be banned for most shopping with paper or cloth being used by shop keepers if a bag is needed, each light bulb in my hotel room is CF and there is a switch into which you must place your key for the electrical power to be active.


Our hosts have been wonderful, sacrificing their weekend day off on Friday March 4 to show us the sites like the Pink Palace and Lalbagh Fort, the Language Martyrs Monument, and the Botanical Gardens. We got to see the opening moments of the Bangladesh/West Indes cricket match on TV during lunch. The outcome of the game was not what Bangladeshis had hoped for as the West Indes team won decisively.